Job in DAM (location : Leeds/UK)

http://www.harveynash.com/uk/hnit/jobs/details.asp?jobid=75253&Sourceapply=4

Z39.50

Z39.50 is a protocol for searching and retrieving information from remote repositories of content such as databases. Although it's popular in lending libraries and is widely used for inter-library loans, it could be an important concept in a DAM system since searching and archiving are
two of the most critical features of a DAM system.

Introduction

Hi,
This is a blog about Video Digital Asset Management(hence the name, videodam).
Here I would discuss/talk about some useful technologies while making a
Video DAM and also some cool products in this space.
Keep Watching.
--
Yours truly.

An interesting way of doing business in EDA

Here is an excerpt from an interview of Ray Bulger, founder and CEO of Duolog :

.............
However Bulger said he believes that it is important that Duolog continues to develop leading-edge designs to maintain its familiarity with design pain points. "Duolog is a silicon developer providing software to other silicon providers," he said. "That's why I am keeping my design services operation in Hungary. They are working on 65-nm and just starting 45-nm," said Bulger.
..............

Here is the link for the story.

Hafnium and chips

Nov 6th 2007
From Economist.com

A new recipe involving a hitherto obscure element is the latest way to make microprocessors faster

ONE consequence of the growth of microelectronics has been an exploration of the periodic table reminiscent of European navigators’ search for the spice islands half a millennium ago.

Japan's technology giants are shedding their semiconductor units, sort of

From The Economist :

THE main ingredient of a semiconductor is silicon, but it might as well be pyrite, or fool's gold. That is because consistently making money out of chips is notoriously difficult. Cyclical demand means that profits are volatile, and new kinds of chips quickly become commoditised. The business is also highly capital-intensive: a new fabrication plant, or fab, costs $3 billion-5 billion, and new facilities must be built every few years as technology advances.

Accordingly, many Western technology firms, such as Philips, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and Siemens, long ago spun off their chipmaking units in order to focus on the final products, rather than the bits inside them. Japan's huge electronics conglomerates have largely resisted this “fab lite” strategy. This now seems to be changing, though the companies' willingness to let go fully is still in doubt.

Read More Here ...

Language Reference Manuals for Verilog and System Verilog

Verilog Reference Manual
System Verilog Reference Manual

Domain specific language(s) for EDA?

Just now, I viewed this tech-talk@google video.
It touts domain specific languages as the next big thing in software. A Domain specific language is a language designed for a particular domain. For example HTML is a language designed for designing web pages, MySql is a language for database manipulation, etc. Speaker cites the biggest advantage of DSL(s) being that they lessen the communication-loss from the specifications to programming, which is the most popular way of developing software today.

For example, if I am to develop a software, I go to the client, get the specifications and use it to write a program. But the language that is used to write the specs is loosely-coupled with the language that is used to develop the software, so there is a communication-gap and communication-loss in this process.

What happens when the language that is used to write the software closely mimics the language of the domain that the software belongs to?
For e.g.<title>Page-title<\title>, this HTML
piece of a web-page succinctly captures the user-intent. Compare it to how would it be written
and used in C.

Using a DSL will make life a lot more easier for the client and for someone who has to actually maintain the code. But for someone who has to develop the code, there will be a learning-curve. So there are these pros and cons.


Well, my point is, is there any DSL being developed for EDA?
Or, how good an idea will it be to have a DSL for EDA?

Java for EDA Tools

Are there any(popular/unpopular) EDA tools(not the GUI part), which are built using Java?
If yes, how are the stringent memory allocation-deallocation requirements met?
If no, why not?